The New York Yankees and Yankee Stadium are going all out to do their part in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. As of Friday, Yankee Stadium will be a mass vaccination site, with 15,000 appointments available the first week.
The announcement was made today, via the office of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City mayor Bill De Blasio. “It’s abundantly clear that Black, Latino and poor communities have been hit the hardest by COVID, and the Bronx is no exception,” Governor Cuomo said.
“Our efforts to target vaccinations by locations with higher positivity rates have been working to not only keep the infection rate down, but to help ensure equity in our vaccine distribution process, and opening a mass vaccination site at Yankee Stadium – the Bronx’s most iconic landmark – is the perfect solution to helping this borough get vaccinated and defeat COVID once and for all.”
“This mega site shows what our grassroots, equity-driven NYC Vaccine for All effort is all about,” Mayor de Blasio added.
“Yankee Stadium has always been known for its World Series banners, but now it’ll be recognized as a place where the people of the surrounding community in the Bronx can receive the vaccine doses that they need and deserve.
“This is about justice and standing up for the neighborhoods that were hardest hit by COVID-19.”
According to a midday report on CNBC yesterday, Monday marked a very important turning point milestone: the very first day that the number of vaccines administered was higher than the total new cases count. The report also said that about 10% of the population has been vaccinated already, and that getting 100 million vaccinated by sometime in March is actually realistic.
The new Presidential administration has stated repeartedly their aims to get the vaccine to 100 million Americans in the first 100 days. While that have may seemed overly ambitious of Joe Biden at first, it’s actually quite practical, provided supply can be met.
The demand for the vaccine is very high, and it’s a question of logistics, getting the doses to the people.
The New York Yankees statement said that the club “recognizes the devastating effect COVID-19 has had on our borough, and it is our privilege to have Yankee Stadium as a host site for providing vaccines to Bronx residents.”
Beginning Friday, February 5, the Yankee Stadium site will operate from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., seven days a week. Vaccinations are by appointment only and are reserved for Bronx residents who meet New York’s 1a and 1b vaccine eligibility requirements only.
Eligible Bronx residents can make their appointment by visiting Somosvaccinations.com or by calling 1-833-SomosNY.
Proof of residency in the Bronx will be required. It’s efforts like this that will get us to herd immunity, and with that full re-opening faster. But of course there is resistance. According to that same CNBC report, about 1/3 of the American population wants the inoculation, 1/3 could be convinced to take it and 1/3 simply won’t take it.
To paraphrase a very famous man who once lived about a mile from Yankee Stadium, 1/3 “are not throwing their shot.”
Unfortunately, another ballpark home to a big market, high profile MLB team, Dodger Stadium, was terrorized by anti-vaxxers. Hopefully, weirdos of this sort do not come to Yankee Stadium, or any other vaccination site for that matter, to try and impede others from getting their shots.
Protesting peacefully is a vastly different exercise from impeding healthcare workers from getting their job done.
It’s one thing to be skeptical of the inoculation, other polls say about 24% of the country is unwilling to get it, but it’s quite another to try and impose your conspiracy nonsense on the lives of others.
If you are getting the vaccine, no matter what part of the country you live in, the Wall Street Journal has you covered with a guide at this link.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank, partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” has regularly appeared in WGN, Sports Illustrated, Chicago Tribune and SB Nation. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.